The Clergyman's Wife and Other Sketches/Books
BOOKS.
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y library was dukedom large enough," said the majestic Prospero; and to a true lover of books a choice library is a kingdom of countless opulence and measureless extent. At the feet of its sovereign a Golconda opens, and from its teeming mines he may gather gems of knowledge to circle his own brow with a diadem more lustrous than the crowns of princes.
No wizard's wand in olden days ever wrought such marvels as the mighty conjuring of quaint John Guttenberg's unsightly types! As we gaze upon the transcript of master minds, spread before us by their dark impress, what spectral forms start from the magic pages! The solitary room is peopled with shapes that came not in at the doors. The great man, whose bones lie mouldering in yonder churchyard, stands beside us, a dear, familiar friend. The buried beauty floods the chamber with the golden radiance of her smile. Electric flashes of wit play around us from mouths that have long been fleshless. The silence is made musical with tones of pathos, of mirth, of counsel, of approval, all issuing from those living leaves. The poet says, "aspire!" the sage, "be wise!" the martyr, "be heroic!" the divine, "be humble!" Bare walls are suddenly hung with glowing pictures of human life. Time and space are annihilated. A gentle companion softly takes our hand in his, and leads us over mountains and across seas, up dizzy heights, down cavernous abysses, through labyrinthine gardens, into loathsome dungeons; nay, he even soars with us to the pearly gates, beyond the blue expanse, and reveals a momentary glimpse of the celestial realms they inclose.
It may be that we opened the volume whence all this enchantment comes forth, weary and disheartened, and seeing only the dark and tangled threads in the web of life; but we close it, after that strange wandering, that mysterious communing, refreshed and strengthened. Some of the ends of the knotted skein have been found, and the shapes they were designed to broider upon Fate's tapestry are discovered. We have assumed a new armor of courage, while consorting with courageous spirits. We grow valiant for life's battle, because we have witnessed victories and talked with conquerors.
Benjamin Franklin, when he was a boy, met with a book entitled "Essays to do Good;" of which he says, "it gave me such a turn of thinking as to have an influence on my conduct through life; for I have always set a greater value on the character of a doer of good than any other kind of reputation; and, if I have been a useful citizen, the public owes the advantage of it to that book." There can be no doubt that the lives of thousands are influenced by the books they peruse at a period when the mind is like an unwritten page, and of wax-like impressibility. A breath from some chance volume may fill the sails of the human ship, just launched on the broad ocean of existence, and give the first impetus towards a harbor of safety or the engulfing maelstrom.
O, how often have the pure lips of maidenhood quaffed from the Circe-cup of an evil book until the entrancing poison coursed through young veins beyond the power of antidote, and the health of the spirit was hopelessly broken! Give us, then, fearless and honest critics, who will distinguish the fair-seeming nightshade from the innocent flowers of fiction. Let the Censor's broad fan diligently winnow away the light and profitless chaff of literature, and disclose the wholesome wheaten treasure beneath, which yields fit nourishment for the expanding intellect. He who performs this sacred duty, achieves a double good, for he surely increases our reverence for books; and can we revere them too much, when our very religion comes to us embalmed in the holy pages of an inspired volume?